


the chain

by AliuIce0814



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (Tony is still dead though), Artist Steve Rogers, Catholic Steve Rogers (mentioned), De-Serumed Steve Rogers, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Endgame, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-19 04:55:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22105423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliuIce0814/pseuds/AliuIce0814
Summary: “Do what I did,” Clint suggests quietly. “Get out of the game.”Steve shakes his head. “The world needs Captain America.”“Does that mean Captain America has to be you?”The shield's too heavy, but Steve doesn't know how to put it down.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 27
Kudos: 155





	the chain

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this immediately after I saw Endgame but was still so angry that I couldn't finish it until now. Let me know if I missed anything in revisions.
> 
> Title is from the Fleetwood Mac song.

Tony’s eyes stare blankly forward. Steve keeps watching his chest, waiting, hoping, even though he’s watched hundreds of people die. He knows. They all know. Pepper curls against Tony, stroking his hair, whispering even though he can’t hear. Peter makes a high-pitched sound. Steve moves forward, but Rhodey’s right there, tucking Peter against his metal-plated chest and holding him gently. Hot, dry wind courses around them, stinging Steve’s eyes. 

Something cool and solid grazes Steve’s elbow. He turns, blurry-eyed, and there’s Bucky with his metal hand outstretched. 

“Hey,” Bucky says softly. Steve stares, taking in the gray eyes, the windswept hair, the dimple in his chin: all these pieces of Bucky he’s thought for five years were gone forever. His stomach lurches as if he’ll vomit or lose his heart through his throat. He grabs Bucky by the back of his jacket and drags him into a hug. Bucky’s breath comes out of him in an  _ oomph.  _

Bucky smells the same, sharp like oil and the cologne he’d just started wearing again. He’s wearing the same vibranium-threaded bulletproof vest beneath his jacket. Steve can feel the solid weight of it as he clings to him.  _ “Bucky.”  _

Bucky makes the smallest hushing sound, mouth close to Steve’s sweat-drenched sideburns. His metal hands rests on the back of Steve’s neck, blessedly cold against his skin. His other hand wanders, fluttering over Steve’s head and shoulders before following the length of his spine. Checking for injuries, probably. He did that after each fight back home in Brooklyn, cussing and fussing at Steve while he checked that no kicks or punches had made his scoliosis worse. He was always checking on Steve in Europe, too, even if all he could manage was a quick brush of a hand across his back while he was walking past. Steve sways and lets Bucky take a little more of his weight. “Where are you hurt?” Bucky asks. He prods at Steve’s head. Steve winces when Bucky’s fingers catch on blood-crusted hair. 

“Don’t,” he says quietly. “I—”

Steve catches the sound of Pepper’s hitching breaths. A sob bubbles up in his chest, but he swallows it before anyone but Bucky can hear it. 

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says. Steve pulls back, keeping a hand on his shoulder. He digs his fingers into Bucky’s shoulder to make sure he’s solid. Bucky glances past Steve, towards Tony’s burned and battered body, before he makes eye contact with Steve again, the corners of his mouth turned down. “Is he—is he the only one?”

Steve swallows and shakes his head. “Natasha.” Saying her name makes the ground sway. 

Bucky’s breath comes out in a rush. He scrubs a hand through his hair before dragging it across his face. “How? No, don’t answer that, I don’t--Natalia’s gone? Okay. Okay. Okay.” His voice gets thinner and raspier the longer he speaks. He grips Steve’s shoulder tightly. If Steve could get wounds to stay, he would have Bucky’s fingerprints tattooed there. He reaches up and grabs Bucky’s hand instead, swiping his thumb against his gloved knuckles. 

When Peter cries, he sounds even younger than he is. To Steve he sounds like 18-year-olds with blown-off legs in muddy trenches or like Bucky shaking himself sick on based after he got out of Azzano. Peter sounds like Steve’s own tears echoing in the church annex before Ma’s funeral. Steve scrubs a hand over his chin, where stubble’s starting to poke through, and breathes deliberately. “Bucky. I can’t--”

“You can.” Bucky squeezes Steve once before pushing him towards Tony’s crumpled body. “You’ve got work to do.”

#

Steve helps Rhodey carry Tony’s body to the car Happy brings to the compound. The arm Steve slings over his shoulder is still warm. Tony’s head lolls against Steve’s bicep. Steve swallows and carefully avoids looking at the burned skin sloughing off. Tony’s eyes are closed like they were in the back of that limo, New Years’ 2014, when Steve and Natasha used their PTO from SHIELD to indulge Tony’s dream of dragging the whole Avengers team on a multi-borough bender. His head had rested on Steve’s shoulder then, almost exactly like this, except he wouldn’t shut up.  _ Why don’t we do this all the time,  _ slurred against the collar of his shirt, and  _ why do you smell so good, did Dad program that into your Big Kid Juice,  _ and  _ I might puke, but I promise it won’t be on you,  _ on and on until Steve closed his eyes too and let the endless words wash over him just like the hum of traffic. 

The car ride to Tony’s lakehouse is absolutely devoid of sound. Rhodey sits in back, holding Tony’s body steady. Steve rides shotgun. When he glances back, Rhodey’s whispering something in Tony’s ear. Steve looks forward quickly and focuses on the gray road ahead. 

Pepper goes into the house first to talk to Morgan, the tiny dark-haired girl whose stuffed animals and blanket hid Steve’s shield in Tony’s trunk. Steve waits long enough to make sure that Rhodey can handle the sagging weight of Tony’s body before he heads back to what’s left of the compound. Bucky and Sam are spearheading the clean-up. It’s a relief to follow their orders, to lift a beam, muscles straining, when Sam says to lift a beam or fetch a new trash bag and shake it open when Bucky says. His muscles ache, but he can feel all of his wounds knitting together, the holes Thanos left closing up. 

Wanda’s room flooded when Thanos’ ship crashed through the retaining wall. Steve sloshes through knee-deep brown water to sort her belongings. Not much is salvageable. Her guitar is a total loss, the wood swollen and cracked from water. She lowers it gently into the trash bag Steve holds open for her. “We’ll get you another one,” Steve says.

Wanda shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she says thickly. Of all the photos that once lined her wall, only the ones she had pinned close to the ceiling have survived: a wrinkled image of the twins during Hanukkah when they were small, arms around each other, mouths stuffed with chocolate. A calico cat washing itself in a Paris alleyway. Sam and Steve arm-wrestling, Sam collapsing in laughter. Bucky brings her a gallon Ziplock bag to keep them safe. Steve watches how carefully he takes the photos from her trembling hands. 

Steve’s room is nearly as bad as Wanda’s. The best-preserved of his belongings are the ones that were preserved on purpose: his lockbox with all of his clothes, pictures, notebooks, and miscellaneous childhood items is intact. Steve runs his fingers over the SHIELD insignia stamped on the top. Peggy designed it. Peggy and Howard. He saw both of them so recently that if he closes his eyes, he feels like he could conjure them right here in his ruined room. As Tony spoke to Howard, Steve watched how Tony’s posture relaxed from defensive to open, how he unconsciously mirrored Howard’s gestures. He saw how tightly he hugged Howard. Steve wishes he could have gone around the glass partition in Peggy’s office to hug her, too. At least Tony got to hold onto his dad one more time. At least. 

Plastic rattles behind Steve. When he turns around, Sam’s there with a storage tub. He sets it on the remains of Steve’s drawing desk. “Bucky thought you might need this.”

Steve nods. “Thanks.” His throat’s tight. He should say something to Sam, but his tongue’s lead-heavy. He feels as frozen as he did when he stared at Peggy through the glass.

Sam must sense that he wants to say something, because he waits a good minute before he says, “You let me know if you need anything else.”

“Wait,” Steve says before Sam can leave. He stands up, knees damp, and crosses the room to pull Sam into a hug. Sam’s one of the best huggers Steve knows, almost as good as Bucky. He wraps his arms around Steve firmly but not tightly. It’s a little difficult to hold onto someone who’s wearing a metal backpack that transforms into wings, but Steve just digs his fingers into the grooves on the backpack and holds on tight. “Can’t tell you how many times I tried to call you in for backup.”

“Glad I could finally answer.”

_ On your left,  _ Sam’s voice had said in Steve’s ear mid-battle. Steve’s stomach swooped. 

#

By the time the sun sets, almost everything that can be salvaged from the compound has been. Bucky’s so quiet that Steve doesn’t hear him sidle up. When Steve finally looks over at him, Bucky’s mouth’s a tight line. “Sorry,” he says quietly. 

Steve shakes his head. “Not your fault.”

“Still sorry.” Bucky reaches out and tucks Steve against his side. It’s so easy for Steve to hunch in on himself, making himself smaller so he fits under Bucky’s arm. Bucky gently scratches his metal fingers against Steve’s scalp. Steve can’t help but to lean into the touch. The remains of the compound reek of smoke and blood. He swallows thickly. He can’t stop staring at Bucky’s tangled hair and bruised knuckles. Bucky frowns and stops touching Steve’s head. “What?”

Steve blinks hard. Put your hand back, he wants to beg. Instead, he says, “You were dead.” Even thinking about it makes him go numb. His hands tremble, but he doesn’t feel it happening, just sees it like he’s watching it happen in a movie.  _ I couldn’t walk, couldn’t breathe, if I coulda died with you I would’ve.  _

Bucky tucks his stray hair behind his ears to keep the wind from blowing it in his face. He looks out over the leveled compound rather than at Steve. “Felt myself go and thought, maybe it was just time.”

All of Steve’s organs twist at once. “Bucky.”

“ _ Don’t _ , Steve. As if you didn’t fly a plane into ice.”

Steve closes his eyes against a wave of vertigo. When he opens them, Bucky’s watching him closely. He reaches out and cradles, just cradles, Steve’s skull with his hand. Steve struggles to remember how to breathe. 

“It was dark. Not like night, like—” Bucky snaps his fingers until he seems to conjure up the memory he wants. “Me and Dum-Dum found this cave in Italy before you came over. The deeper we went, the darker it got until there was nothing. Not even a spark of light. Any sound you made got swallowed up. Wherever I went when Thanos snapped, it was like that. Maybe I did die for a second. Then that wizard showed up and opened one of his crazy portals, and Thanos was there again, and so were you. Except you shaved.” Bucky shakes his head, lips quirking. “That’s the only way I knew for sure time must have passed.” 

“I coulda brought a shave kit with me,” Steve says. “You had one in the Alps. Don’t think I don’t remember.”

He’s pretty sure the stupid joke will fall flat, but Bucky snorts and drags him into a headlock. “Not all of us are as naturally pretty as you, Rogers.”

“Pretty sure it’s not natural,” Steve says dryly, gesturing at himself. 

Bucky digs his elbow into Steve’s ribs. Steve tries to squirm away, but Bucky grabs him tight. “Can’tcha take a compliment?” 

Steve twists out of the way just in time, ears and neck burning. “You sound like Tony.” It takes a second for his own words to reach his ears. His muscles seize up. 

“Oh.,” Bucky says in a punched-out voice. His hand comes to grip the back of Steve’s neck, somehow helping Steve balance and balancing himself at the same time. Steve presses his knuckles against his mouth to hold back the keening sound that wants to crawl out of his chest. 

#

Pepper has Tony cremated that night. The funeral’s set for the next day since everyone’s together. Steve doesn’t sleep. He patrols instead, following the orange-flagged property boundaries Tony set. It takes him two laps of the lake to realize the crying that echoes across it comes from nesting loons. Their dark shapes flitting across the water remind him of the divers that lived in the pond by Bletchley. The week he and Peggy went to collect broken Nazi codes from Alan, they spent every evening tossing scraps of stale bread to the divers. They would swarm them, pecking each other for crumbs. As they swam back across the water, they cried out the same way the loons on Tony’s pond do now. The sound’s just as eerie as the first time Steve heard it. 

Peggy had laughed when he shivered. “They’re just birds,” she told him. 

“Well, they ain’t like the birds in Brooklyn,” he’d said crossly, annoyance making him lose Captain America’s facade of good grammar. “Pigeons don’t do that.” 

Peggy’d laughed, teasing and warm, and Steve had thrown his slices of stale bread at her. She’d snatched them up and thrown them right back in his face. They’d gone back and forth like that, darting between trees while the ducks quacked impatiently after them. Then one of the codebreakers had come running across the lawn, frantic about some Nazi plans the bombe machine had just decoded. Peggy’s expression closed off, all business; Steve drew himself up, Captain America again, and shoulder-to-shoulder they walked back into the war. 

Clint joins Steve’s patrol around one in the morning with Nate asleep in a sling on his back. Steve’s heart aches at the sight of Nate’s round cheeks and sleep-ruffled hair. If Clint’s willing to bring him out here, he’s obviously not expecting a fight. Less than 24 hours after Thanos ripped their world apart again, Clint must already be starting to feel safe. Or--more likely--he can’t bear to let his whole family out of his sight again. Steve gets that. If Bucky hadn’t seemed exhausted, Steve would’ve dragged him out here with him, too. 

“Hey,” Clint says quietly, adjusting the sling’s straps. “Wanna hold him?”

Belatedly, Steve realizes he’s raised a tentative hand in Nate’s direction. He drops it quickly and hopes Clint can’t see his red face in the dark. “Sorry.”

Clint shakes his head. “Nah, I’m serious.” He unbuckles the sling and slowly moves it around to his front. Nate doesn’t stir. “He’s a heavy little dude. Wouldn’t mind if you took him for a minute.” 

Steve ignores the sudden burning in his eyes as Clint extracts Nate from the sling and hands him off to Steve. For a moment, Nate squirms in Steve’s arms, but then he settles. One of his thumbs drifts toward his mouth. Nate’s head is surprisingly sturdy where it rests against Steve’s collarbone. His mouth’s parted, and every few breaths he makes a snuffling sound. The few times Steve saw Nate in person, he thought his dark hair and round face looked like Laura, but when Nate’s brow furrows, he favors Clint. 

“Let me know if he gets too heavy,” Clint says.

“Nothing gets too heavy,” Steve whispers. He’s terrified that if he breathes too deeply, he’ll wake Nate up. Even the lightest exhale ruffles that fluffy hair. 

“Right. Super strength. Duh.” Clint smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Think you could lend some of that to me?”

“Wish I could.” Steve means it. His chest hurts from rib to rib. If Clint had Steve’s strength, he could have yanked Natasha back over the edge of the cliff on Vormir. He’s not blaming Clint; it’s just a fact that stifles his breathing. 

They pause by a tiny tent along the lake’s edge that must belong to Morgan. Clint perches on the miniature chair beside it while Steve leans against the nearest tree and adjusts his hold on Nate. Did Tony build that little chair himself? Did he sit in it sometimes the way Clint’s sitting in it now, knees folded almost to his chest? Did he crawl into the tent with Morgan like Steve’s ma did with the pillow forts he built as a kid? Steve’s sure Tony played along with her tea parties or dragon-slaying or whatever other games she invented. He wishes he could have seen that in person. If only--somehow--he could have been Morgan’s Uncle Steve. If only he’d known how little time Tony had left. 

Nate stirs. Steve hums a couple notes automatically, some tune Ma used to sing when he was fussing. Nate settles back down, index and middle finger popping into his mouth. 

“You ever think about it?” Clint asks. When Steve frowns, Clint nods at Nate. “Having kids?”

Steve adjusts his suddenly sweaty grip on Nate. “I missed my chance.”

“Maybe.” Clint shrugs. One of his knees jiggles. “Or maybe you’re scared to take it.”

Peggy isn’t here. Would they have lasted past the war anyway? Steve can easily conjure how hard his heart pumped when she kissed him hard in the back of Red Skull’s souped-up car. Kissing her felt like jumping out of Howard’s plane--terrifying, maybe unsafe, but also necessary, like he’d been made for it. The war forced some people to fall in love, but Steve doesn’t think that’s true for him and Peggy. She loved him even when he was a string bean who couldn’t do a push-up. He loved her when she couldn’t move from her nursing home bed. He dreamed about her every night right after he woke up from the ice: about her dancing, about her fingers twined with his, about kids with Peggy’s auburn curls but bright blue eyes. His face was always wet when he woke up. Steve shakes himself. “Who would I take it with?” 

“Barnes?” 

“What?” The word startles out of Steve even as his mind starts spinning. Before the war, there was no use considering some kind of white picket fence dream with Bucky, not even when they spent every night curled together in the same skinny bed. Maybe if they’d both survived the war, he could have camped out with Bucky at the edge of the Grand Canyon, close enough that any wind coming off of it made the vinyl tent shiver, and used his paints to capture all the shadows on the red rock. Maybe he could have reached out and streaked that thick paint across Bucky’s skin. But queers couldn’t get married back then, couldn’t adopt kids the way they can now. Imagining that kind of perfect life would have only led to heartache, so Steve never let himself imagine it. He hasn’t let himself imagine it even since he’s been in this queerer new world. Surely Bucky hasn’t, either. 

Has he? 

Maybe if they hadn’t fought Tony, if Bucky had come to live at the compound right away, Steve and Bucky could have gone to poetry readings at little hipster art galleries together. They could have had dinner together, spent nights together, maybe even have gone to a courthouse together. Natasha would have witnessed it; maybe Tony would have too. Maybe Bucky could’ve gone to therapy, the intensive kind Sam’s always insisted he needs. Maybe Steve and Bucky could’ve put together a perfect room full of blankets and dolls for a kid like Nate. 

Clint snorts. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a really sucky liar, Cap?”

“Anyone tell you that you’re nosy?” Steve snaps. His whole face is flaming. Sweat drips down the small of his back. If he weren’t holding a kid, he’d have more pointed words for Clint. He settles for glaring instead. 

Clint returns his gaze calmly. “Nat woulda asked.”

Steve jaw tenses. Nate stirs. Steve holds his breath and doesn’t move until Nate settles again. He breathes out slowly and resists the urge to bury his face against Nate’s cheek and breathe in his baby powder smell. “It doesn’t matter what I want,” he says in a low voice. “I can’t be Captain America and settle down.” Families deserve dads who come home to them every night, who toss baseballs and read bedtime stories and kiss hurts better. He’d always let them down. 

He lets his team down enough as it is. 

“Do what I did,” Clint suggests quietly. “Get out of the game.”

Steve blinks. Clint’s cut to the heart of his thoughts so quickly that Steve wonders if Nat isn’t with them after all. He shakes his head. “The world needs Captain America.” 

Clint shrugs. “Does that mean Captain America has to be you?”

Nate stirs again, rubbing his knuckles against his closed eyes. Steve resists the sudden urge to press a kiss to his hair. “Think he’d be more comfortable in bed,” he says softly. Clint sighs and takes Nate back. Nate clings to him, holding Clint’s shirt in his tight little fist. 

Clint starts up the hill toward the house, then pauses, turning back to Steve. “If you needed to get out, you’d let us help you. Right?”

“Sure,” Steve says. He hopes the dark conceals his expression, too. He’d rather Clint not know that he’s lying. 

Steve’s not alone by the lake long before Bucky slips silently up beside him. His long hair’s pulled back into a bun, and he’s wearing a too-tight MIT sweatshirt that Pepper must have loaned him from Tony’s closet. Tony would have hated Bucky wearing it. 

Steve expects Bucky to walk shoulder-to-shoulder with him, the way used to patrol the edges of camp. He doesn’t expect Bucky to link arms with him, metal hand brushing against Steve’s hand. He nearly stumbles. When he casts his mind back to remember the last time Bucky linked arms with him, he finds himself thinking instead of the girls Bucky used to take dancing with their hair in curls. Bucky was always holding their hands, helping them up, holding doors open for them. The couple times he tried that with Steve, Steve wouldn’t let him. It was safer for Bucky to only do that for girls. 

No one’s watching the two of them right now. 

Bucky points up at dark shapes ducking erratically at the edge of the trees: “Bats.”

“Did you seem those in the cave with Dum-Dum?” Steve asks.

“Nah. Kept thinking they were gonna burst out of some hidey-hole, though.” Bucky grins--Steve can see the flash of his white teeth in the darkness. “Didn’t help that Dum-Dum was makin’ weird noises to freak me out. Jackass.”

Steve pauses at the far end of the lake and looks back toward the house. There’s driftwood on the bank; when Steve sits on it, Bucky drops down beside him. He pulls out his notepad and scribbles something in it. “Writing about Dum-Dum,” he says before Steve can ask. “Don’t really forget things anymore, but it’s nice to write it down, y’know?”

Steve bites the inside of his cheek to keep from saying  _ You used to write poetry.  _ The scribbled lines hadn’t been anything like the published poems Steve’s friends in art school passed around. Bucky’d kept his writing hidden most of the time, but everyone once in a while when Bucky was out of the apartment Steve would peek in his notebook. His pulse would flicker in his wrists and throat when he read  _ You are small/and sharp/in my bed/not like these soft girls/I wish you would stay.  _

Steve would sleep in his own bed after reading each poem. Fear and guilt consumed him. Everyone already assumed skinny artist Steve was queer. He couldn’t let his presence get Bucky in trouble. He tried to ignore the sound of Bucky’s breaths, the creak of his mattress when he shifted in his sleep. Inevitibly he always ended up curled against Bucky again, wondering if the quick press of his lips to Bucky’s cheek would appear in a poem someday. 

Bucky flips through his notebook. “What are you looking for?” Steve asks. Bucky shrugs. When Steve holds out his hand, Bucky passes over the notebook “Do you remember--” Steve stops himself before he finishes the question. Sam told him almost ten years ago not to ask Bucky any questions that begin like that. It’s just that his heart aches, sometimes, not knowing what all Bucky remembers from before. Even if Hydra hadn’t inflicted brain damage on Bucky, regular people don’t remember everything from ten or twenty years ago, let alone seventy or eighty. 

Steve wants to say,  _ Do you remember when you would pose for sketches because you were jealous of the guys I drew at school?  _ He wants to ask,  _ Do you remember when someone from church recognized you in one of those sketches at an art show? Do you remember how I panicked and burned all of those sketches and when you found out you cried?  _ He wants to reach out and stroke Bucky’s cheek with his finger. He takes Bucky’s pen from his hands and draws the curve of Bucky’s cheek on the notebook page instead. 

“Make me pretty,” Bucky mumbles. He’s good about not moving while Steve sketches him. Always has been. 

“You’re always pretty,” Steve says, or maybe just thinks. He can’t tell--Bucky doesn’t respond to it. He follows the curve of Bucky’s cheek to the angle of his jaw to the shadow of his neck. He crosshatches shadows and stubble. He swipes tiny curves for Bucky’s fluttering eyelashes. The lake laps at the shore. 

Steve shouldn’t disturb Bucky, especially not when he’s trying to sketch him. But Steve knows Bucky’s face by heart. He can afford to make Bucky move a little. “Do you have any regrets?”

Bucky laughs, loud and harsh. “My whole life’s one big regret, pal.” 

Steve swallows against how much that stings and focuses on capturing the spot where Bucky’s skin disappears beneath the neck of his sweatshirt. Bucky’s metal hand curls around Steve’s ankle in a loose grip. Steve wishes he could capture that physical sensation with his pencil, the cool weight of Bucky’s fingers against Steve’s skin where a sliver of it’s exposed between the top of his sock and the hem of his pant leg. He focuses on drawing the soft waves of hair that halo Bucky instead. 

“Whatcha thinking about?” Bucky says quietly. He gently squeezes Steve’s ankle. 

Steve shrugs, but Bucky keeps watching him. Waiting him out. Steve swallows. “M tired,” he admits. 

“We could go to bed,” Bucky says, getting his feet under him to stand. 

_ We.  _ Steve’s stomach flips. Of course Bucky means they could go to separate beds. This isn’t the 40s. But Bucky stroked his cheek so gently. Maybe he did mean one bed. Steve shakes his head. “Not that kind of tired,” he says, even though he is. “In--in my bones.”

“Yeah.” Bucky’s voice is soft. “Me too.” He picks a few blades of grass and shreds them slowly. Steve sketches the motion in quick, broad strokes. Bucky wets his lips. “Hey.”

“Yeah?’

“Maybe we could be tired together. If you want.”

Steve blinks. “What?’”

Bucky pushes Steve gently. “Just...go off a while. Just us. Go out West. Remember all the posters you made when you worked for the WPA? Could see the parks in real life.”

Bucky’s always wanted to see the Grand Canyon. “Could go back to art school,” Steve says softly. He shakes himself. “No, I can’t. They need me here.”

“Haven’t they had you here long enough?”

“It’s never gonna be long enough. Not while I have the shield.”

“You’re not the shield, Steve.”

“If I’m not, then I don’t know who I am anymore.”

“Oh, come on.” Bucky’s tight-lipped the way he gets when Steve’s annoying him. “I do.” 

Steve nods. 

When the sky above the lake is streaked with pink and orange, Sam comes to ask them if they want breakfast. Steve would rather stay outside, watching the loons circle their nest, but Bucky grabs his arm and pulls him inside. Sam, Laura, and Bruce function as an assembly line in the kitchen, passing out plate after plate of eggs, turkey bacon, and syrup-drenched pancakes. Steve wonders if anyone else is eating out of obligation rather than hunger. Every carefully crafted bite tastes like dust. 

#

Steve wears the same suit he wore to Peggy’s funeral to Tony’s funeral. Afterward, all of the Avengers— _ there’s so many of us now, _ Steve thinks, and hopes Tony’s proud—cram themselves into the living room Tony built with his own hands. Their work isn’t done. Not yet. 

“Why can’t we just destroy them?” Peter asks. Steve doesn’t know the kid well, but he’s never heard him this quiet before. His aunt’s out on the porch with Nate and Morgan, but Steve can feel her eyes on all of the Avengers, daring them to put her boy in danger again. “The stones killed—uh, caused all the problems, right? So we should crush them. Blow them up. Something, just get rid of them forever.”

Bruce shakes his head. “The amount of rads we would absorb from that kind of atomic-level destruction would—”

“Speak English,” Steve says, then winces, remembering saying the same to Tony so many years ago. 

Bruce sighs. “We can’t safely destroy the stones. You saw what happened to Thanos when he did. Even I couldn’t survive that.”

“I might be able to,” Carol says.

Steve shakes his head. “No. No one’s risking their life for that.”

Sam shifts in his chair. “Then what do we do, just wait for the next crazy to come along and snap half of us away again?” 

“We return them,” Scott says. He wets his lips and glances around at everyone before he continues, “To the exact point in time where we got them from. That way they’re secure, we know where they are, and we fix whatever negative effects we created when we altered the time flow.” 

Peter raises his hand. Scott nods at him. Peter leans forward in his chair, legs jittering. “But if we put them back, doesn’t that mean Thanos will get them again?” 

“Not  _ again _ . He already did.”

Bruce nods. “We can’t reverse what’s already happened.” He takes off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose. Even though he’s green all the time now, his current expression makes him look exactly like the tiny nervous guy he used to be. “By keeping the stones, at best we’d create a positive alternate time stream. At worst, someone else just as motivated as Thanos would realize we had all six stones, and we’d be sitting ducks.”

Steve’s heart drops. He looks at Sam, sitting backward in his chair, arms resting on the backrest, nodding seriously; he looks at Wanda, leaning against the doorframe, glancing between the meeting and the toddler Clint named for Nat and her brother. He tips his head back and looks up at Bucky, standing above him behind the couch. His dark hair’s long but clean and artfully straightened, and even with his metal arm gleaming in the weak sunlight, he’s closer to the suave, cocky Bucky Steve said goodbye to at the Exhibition of Tomorrow in ’43 than he has been in years. He crumbled to dust just out of Steve’s reach. He knew it was happening. He disappeared with Steve’s name on his lips. Steve can’t let that happen again.

“I’ll do it,” he says. He hears Bucky make a sound behind him, but he ignores him. Sam raises his eyebrows. Steve holds up a hand and counts off the reasons why volunteering makes sense: “I have a photographic memory. I can blend into just about all of the places where the stones belong. I’ve done this kind of time travel before.” Carol’s nodding. 

“That doesn’t guarantee anything,” Scott says. He gives Bucky an apologetic look before he nods at Steve. “But—yeah, you’d probably be my choice too.”

“We have just slightly more than enough Pym particles to get you there and back,” Hope says. “It’s a slim margin of error.”

“I can do it,” Steve insists. 

Bruce puts his glasses back on and runs one huge hand through his curls. “Don’t make this decision right now. Sleep on it--”

“And what, give the next megalomaniac son of a bitch who wants to end the world enough time to get the stones?” Steve’s aware that he’s shaking, aware that his fists are clenched and that he’s on his feet, but distantly, like he’s watching himself on a TV screen. “No. I’m putting them back.”

“Still give yourself a minute to breathe,” Rhodey urges. “You haven’t had that yet. We can keep this place secure overnight, right?”

Carol nods sharply. Golden power wraps around her arms. Behind her, Wanda mimics her, red magic weaving between her fingers. Steve wonders if she’s even aware of it. “Bruce is right, Cap,” Carol says. “Get some rest. You’ll need everything you’ve got to pull this off.”

“Shouldn’t one of us go with him?” Bucky bursts out. “I mean, that’s a lot of work for one guy.” Across the room, Sam nods. Bucky’s twisting his perfect hair around his metal fingers until it knots. Steve wants to reach out, but one look at Bucky’s square-jawed glare stops him. 

Both Hope and Scott shake their heads. “Too many people lead to too many variables,” Hope says. “And we don’t have enough Pym particles. I trust Cap to bring himself back in one piece.”

“I don’t,” Bucky mumbles. 

The door swings open. Nate stumbles in, bawling and clutching his elbow. “We’ve got a booboo,” Peter’s aunt calls after him. Clint slides between the couch and Sam’s chair and lifts Nate easily, kissing his arm and his tearstained face. Everyone seems to take that as their cue to scatter. As Clint rubs Nate’s back, whispering soothing words against his fluffy hair, Bucky disappears outside. Steve takes a deep breath before following him. 

#

When Steve catches up to him, Bucky’s standing by the lake’s edge, skipping flat rocks along the rippling water. Dum-Dum taught him to do that when they were stationed in France. Steve wonders if Bucky remembers that or just retains the reflex. Bucky’s mouth is a thin, tight line. 

“Can I try?” Steve asks, holding out his open hand palm up. When Bucky ignores him, he slowly lets it drop. “I’d bring you with me if I could.”

“Would you?” Bucky says. Steve winces. Bucky tosses another rock. It hops five times before sinking into the lake’s depth where Nat and Tony rest. “What are you actually planning?”

“What d’you mean?”

Bucky snorts. “Stop lying, Rogers. That shit’s never worked on me.” Steve shrugs, ears burning. Bucky tosses one last rock before facing Steve and fixing Steve with a stare, jaw tight. “You can’t change anything.”

The bitterness in Bucky’s voice makes Steve ache. The weak sunlight glints off Bucky’s metal arm. It’s beautiful and lethal and Bucky doesn’t want it. Every time Steve visited him in Wakanda, he had it off. 

Bucky taps Steve’s elbow with his metal hand. “Come on. You read more science fiction than I ever did. If you go back trying to save people, you’ll screw all of us over. You get that, right?”

Steve focuses on the way the green and gold leaves sway in the wind. Tony got to see this for five years. Even though he knew the world was ending, he lived the best part of his life at this lake. “It’s more than that.” 

Bucky’s quiet for a minute. When he speaks again, his voice is flat. “It’s Carter, isn’t it.”

Steve yanks his hand out of his pocket and turns to stare at Bucky. “What?”

Bucky tips his chin at Steve. “You saw her. When you went back.”

Steve digs his blunt index fingernails into the beds of his thumbnails. The brief pain is enough to keep his voice down. “Yeah. I did see her, Buck.” He doesn’t miss the way Bucky flinches. “She was as close to me as you are right now, right on the other side of a window.” She was chewing some poor loser out, too, deftly locating files on her desk and gesturing at the guy with them every time he tried to interrupt. Steve nearly pressed his face against the glass to see the few strands of gray working their way through her dark curls. “And I couldn’t talk to her.”

Bucky’s jaw works like he’s chewing on something. “Didn’t she get married? Have kids?”

Steve frowns. “Yeah.” Her guy’s name was Daniel Sousa, a solider Steve doesn’t remember saving. Their daughter built computers for NASA. Their son died in Vietnam. On good days Peggy would have the nurses at the home dig out her photo albums so she could show Steve picture after picture of her family.  _ Will you stay for dinner?  _ she sometimes asked, patting Steve’s hand with her cold one. Even in the nursing home, her nails were always neatly painted.  _ Daniel’s a fine cook.  _ Steve always told her yes. How could he refuse? 

Bucky makes a long, disgusted sound. “Jesus, Stevie.”

“What?” It takes Steve a second to realize what Bucky’s implying. Once it clicks, he feels like the soft ground is about to give way under him: Bucky thinks he’s going back for Peggy. Bucky turns and stalks along the side of the lake. Steve has an inch of height on him, but Bucky’s still faster. Steve nearly has to jog to keep up. “Wait. Come on, talk to me.”

“I’ve been talking to you, haven’t I? Doesn’t seem like it’s working.” Bucky’s voice is all vitriol. “Don’t patronize me, Rogers.”

Steve shakes his buzzing head and keeps after him. “I’m not. Bucky. Bucky!”

Bucky’s just a pace ahead when he whips around. “So that’s it, huh? You go off with Carter like nothing’s happened? Like it’s 19-fucking-45?”

“I don’t--”

“You don’t what?”

Steve swallows. He’s never been able to lie to Bucky, no matter how ashamed that sharp gaze makes him feel. Face burning, sweat soaking through the back of his shirt, Steve takes a careful breath and admits, “I don’t know.” 

“Oh, okay. Great. Cool. Fine. Pretend like you didn’t jump in a river after me. Like we didn’t--like I never meant--” Bucky drags an arm across his face. “No, you know what? Go. Live your life with your best girl.” He spits it. “Woulda been good to know we had different interpretations of the end of the line, I dunno, 70 years ago?” 

“That’s not fair,” Steve snaps, face hot. 

“Oh, okay, you want fair?” Bucky whips around on Steve. The color’s high in his cheeks. His eyes are overbright. “Here’s fair: I think you’re a selfish asshole who never loved me in the first place.”

Steve’s fist collides with Bucky’s mouth before his mind can catch up with his body. He hears Bucky’s pained grunt just a second before Bucky’s metal arm cracks across his face. Steve reels back, cheekbone stinging, nose pouring blood. He cups a hand under it, trying to keep the worst of it of his dress shirt. “Fuck,” he gasps because his nose is broken, radiating pain through his cheeks, and because he hit Bucky when Bucky was already hurting. “Bucky, wait--”

Even as Bucky’s spitting blood, his split lip’s knitting back together. His gray eyes are wide and wet. Steve gets just a moment’s glimpse of his stricken expression before Bucky shoves past him, back toward the house. The storm door slams behind him. 

Steve sits on the soft ground. Leaves crinkle beneath him. He holds his nose tightly, tipping his head forward, but his stomach’s sour anyway.  _ Never loved me,  _ Bucky said, and then Steve hit him. Jesus. He can’t--he doesn’t know how to fix this. He doesn’t know where to start. 

Bucky used to press ice wrapped in washcloths to his nose after he got in a scrap. Steve would sit on the kitchen counter and swing his legs while he waited for the swelling to go down. Sometimes Bucky would go out later and track down the guy who bloodied Steve’s nose. He wouldn’t tell him about it, knew it would piss him off. But Steve always found out later, usually when he would see the guy at church with his arm in a sling. Bucky would press closer until he and Steve were shoulder to shoulder and then stare the guy down, daring him to say a word against Steve in the house of God. 

#

Steve bunks with Sam instead instead of Bucky that night, making a nest of blankets on the wooden floor of one of the guest bedrooms. The walls are lined with blown-up photos of the original Avengers: at game night, playing Cards Against Humanity on Tony’s awful red leather couch; in Paris, Natasha laughing on Steve’s shoulders; in the Tower, just a few weeks after the Battle of New York, Tony beaming at the camera even with welts striping his nose. Steve rolls onto his back and stares at the ceiling so he doesn’t have to look at them anymore. “He wanted us to visit,” he says into the gray night. “Even though he told us not to.”

“Sounds like Tony to me.” Sam’s voice echoes soothingly from the daybed. Steve missed that steady sound. 

“Sam.”

“Yeah?”

Steve takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Did it hurt?” As soon as he’s asked the question, he regrets it—doesn’t want to know the answer. But he needs to know. “Were you in pain?”

“No,” Sam says. Steve chest loosens up immediately. “No, it was like being numb. Like when your leg falls asleep. And coming back was all pins and needles. I still can’t believe this hasn’t all just been one really long fucked-up day.” 

Steve laughs shakily. “Longest day of my life.”

“And that’s saying something for you.” Sam laughs, too. “Hey, you sure you don’t need a wingman tomorrow?”

Even though Sam probably can’t seem him well in the dim light, Steve shakes his head. “I appreciate it, but I can get by on my own.”

“You realize you don’t have to, right?”

“Now you sound like Bucky.”

“Hey, you don’t have to be an asshole about it.” 

Steve can hear the smile in Sam’s voice, but he can’t smile back. His heart’s tight as a clenched fist again. He doesn’t feel like it will ever let go. “What are you going to do now? All this, everything that’s happened. Does it make you think about getting out for good?” 

“No.” Sam’s response is so immediate, strong and sure, that Steve sits up a little to look at him. Sam shrugs with one shoulder. “You need my help. You and everybody else. I don’t plan on letting you down.”

Steve chokes. He reaches up until he finds one of Sam’s hands and squeezes tight. He’s hugged Sam before, and he’s shook his hand, but this is somehow more intimate than both of those. He can feel how warm Sam is. If he shifted his grip slightly, he would be able to feel his pulse beating in his wrist. Sam’s only tense for a second before he gently brushes his thumb against the back of Steve’s hand. 

_ I’m drowning, _ Steve would say if he could move his jaw.  _ I’ve been drowning since Peggy heard me put the plane in the ice or since I put her in the ground. Since Bucky fell the first time, and then again and again.  _

Sam squeezes his hand. Steve can hear his watch, so close, and the slight hitch of his breathing.

#

Steve’s not sure when he drifts off, but when he opens his eyes his hand is on the floor beside him, and Sam’s hand hangs over the edge of the bed. Steve scrubs his eyes with the back of his hand and stares at the ceiling. His brain’s spinning through thoughts that started forming while he slept. They solidify as he slowly becomes more conscious. 

Now that Bucky’s put that idea into words, he can’t stop contemplating it: What would it be like to go back to Peggy? Sure, she got married, but she didn’t meet Sousa until after the war. If he went back to ‘45--

No. He can’t. 

Except technically he can. 

He can just picture Peggy in her red dress. She probably wore it again at the war’s end. He can almost feel her soft curls in his hands, though he’s barely touched them before. God, she was beautiful, and she always knew what to say to cut right to the heart of whatever he was avoiding. He saw her at SHIELD--sure, it was just for a moment, just a blink from the other side of a thin glass panel. But even that second reminded him of how strong she was. He thinks she’s probably the only SHIELD director he could ever fully trust. If he could, he’d serve under her, learn to spy for her. If SHIELD thought it was nepotism, then he’d work for the CIA or stay in the Army and do what he could to support her from there. 

They could save Bucky. The idea hooks into his stomach and tugs hard, knocking the breath out of him. He knows where Hydra held Bucky. He’ll never forget that concrete compound in Siberia. If he went back and explained everything to Peggy, if they got there soon enough--maybe Bucky wouldn’t have been tortured out of his mind yet. Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to deprogram him. They could bring him home and--

And what?

Back in the 30s, the 40s, when Steve weighed 90 pounds and hardly had eyes for anyone but Bucky, he always figured he’d be Uncle Steve to any kids Bucky made with whatever dame he ended up with. The thought had stung a little at first, but Steve’d accepted it pretty quickly. He thought he wouldn’t mind balancing a baby with Bucky’s dimples on his hip. He’d have a pretty good time slipping old t-shirts over the kids’ heads like frocks and teaching them how to paint.

Steve’s not so sure Bucky would feel the same way about teaching a kid with Peggy’s curls how to hit a home run. Not after that fight earlier. Oh, sure, Bucky would come around at first, smile his easy smile and talk about all the girls he was making time with. But Steve remembers Bucky’s reaction at the bar the night Peggy wore her red dress, how jealous he’d been just for Steve mentioning taking her for a dance. Maybe Bucky in the past would be okay with playing uncle instead of being in Steve’s arms, but he’d leave eventually. 

And the Bucky here wouldn’t be okay at all. The Bucky who just let Steve sketch him outside, with his brand-new metal arm and his hair pulled back in a practical bun, he’d be heartbroken if Steve left. He already is heartbroken, assuming that Steve’s going back to Peggy. Would Steve leave this Bucky and the soft sound of his even breaths while Steve sketches him sleeping, the grinding of the gears in his metal arm as he lifts new steel beams to rebuild the compound? Would he leave his Bucky, the Bucky who’s experienced nearly everything with him, the Bucky who already understands how much pain he’s in from losing Tony and Nat? If he leaves his Bucky, maybe Bucky would keep recovering--Sam would keep an eye on him. But Sam can’t solve everything, and Steve can’t expect him to. If Bucky retreated into himself, if he begged to be put back on ice, then Steve wouldn’t be there to stop him. 

Steve would fail him. Again. 

Steve bites back a sob he didn’t realize was building and turns away from Sam so he doesn’t wake him. His shattered shield leans against the wall. Steve rubs his knuckles against his eyes until he sees spots. He’s so goddamn tired of the shield. But even without the shield, he won’t get to retire. Not like Clint, who’ll be heading back to his farm soon. Not like Tony, who hid out at this lakehouse for five years. No, people will never stop begging for Captain America’s help. Steve doesn’t fault them for it. That’s why Erskine made him like this, to help people. To be good. 

Steve’s just so damn tired of being good. 

He rolls back over and squints at Sam’s backlit watch. 12:05. Slowly, he unrolls himself from his pile of blankets. The floorboards don’t creak when he creeps across them. Tony built this house right. Steve didn’t know he knew anything about construction or architecture, but he was so damn smart that of course he figured it out. 

A few rooms have lights shining under their doors, and there’s a soft lullaby soundtrack spooling out from Morgan’s room. But Bucky’s room is dark and silent. Steve waits outside of it for a minute, just in case Bucky’s awake. His hearing is as good as Steve’s is. If he’s awake, surely he can hear the rabbit-kick beat of Steve’s pulse. Steve’s tempted to crawl into Bucky’s sleeping bag and beg for forgiveness. Even if Bucky hit him again, he’d take it. It would be worth it to be close to Bucky. 

But Wanda’s in that room, too, and she needs her rest. Steve keeps moving down the hall toward the living room. A new thought’s percolating, growing alongside his twisted-together memories of Peggy and Bucky. Steve can hear low voices in the living room. He hopes he’s right about who it is; they might be able to tell him if his idea’s as possible as he hopes it is.

When he turns the corner into the living room, his shoulders relax a little. He was right: Scott and Hope are curled up together on the couch, talking in the quiet voices of people who are so close that they don’t have to catch every word to understand each other’s meaning. Steve hesitates before clearing his throat. “Scott,” he says.

Scott and Hope look up. Scott’s face is a little pink. “Oh, hey, Cap,” he says, scooting away from Hope. She rolls her eyes, but Scott doesn’t seem to notice. “What’s up?”

“I have some questions.”

“About tomorrow? Yeah, I can help. Though obviously this plan derives from what, uh, Tony came up with.” 

Steve wipes his clammy palms on his sleep pants and comes a little closer. “Actually, my question is about what  _ you _ did the first time you tried.” 

Scott glances over at Hope, turning just a little pinker, and rubs the back of his neck. “Uh, you mean when I, uh, pushed time through me?”

Hope groans. “Oh my god, Scott, you screwed up that badly?”

Steve hesitates. “Actually, I’m not sure that he did. What if I want to come back smaller?”

#

Steve’s not happy to be back in the tight space suit. The warmth of late spring creeps through him, making him sweat as he strides out to the platform. Bruce is waiting there, as is Sam and—Steve’s heart skips—Bucky. Bucky’s tense, like he’s still pissed at Steve, but as soon as Steve’s in range, he grabs him and drags him into a hug. Steve slumps against him. Used to be, Bucky could do more than just take his weight. When Steve was sick or hurt, or when they were wrestling around, Bucky would sling him over his shoulders in a fireman’s lift. Steve used to protest, jabbing his elbow into Bucky’s spine until he dropped him, but now he inhales Bucky’s aftershave and wishes he’d just let Bucky hold him all those years. 

“Don’t do anything stupid ‘til I get back,” he says, squeezing Bucky’s shoulder.

Bucky’s eyes light up with recognition. The ghost of a smile quirks at the corner of his mouth. “How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

Bruce hands Steve the Pym particles before he steps onto the dais. “Remember,” Bruce says, adjusting a few switches, “get the stones back to the same points in time as they came from. With minimal drama. Please?” The ‘please’ comes out a little anxiously. Steve meets Bruce’s gaze. It’s hard to tell now that he’s green, but he seems pale. Steve nods. Behind his back, he crosses his fingers. “Okay. Once I send you through time, I’ll count to five. Then I’ll bring you back.” 

“Got it.” 

“I’ll be counting,” Sam says. Steve tries to smile. He’s not sure if it works.

“Counting down from five,” Bruce says. “Five, four—”

“Hey, Rogers!” Bucky says. Steve looks out and sees those gray eyes, piercing and dark and sad. “Enjoy your dance.”

Steve feels like he’s been cut open, sternum to stomach. He opens his mouth to respond, but Bruce is on “one” and he has to snap his helmet shut just a breath before he’s launched through the electric blue tunnel of space and time.

#

Replacing the stones is easier than taking them was, as if now that Thanos is dead, the universe or God or whatever’s in control is ready to relinquish them. Steve pauses in the middle of Peggy’s office in Camp Lehigh, 1970, and takes a deep breath. When he looks up, Peggy’s on the other side of the glass just like she was before. Seeing her hurts Steve’s chest, but now that the initial shock’s gone, he can actually hear what she’s saying -- and recognize who she’s arguing with. 

“You’re representing the United States,” Alexander Pierce says. “You can’t have your daughter going around undermining our work.” 

Steve laces his arms behind him at parade rest so he doesn’t punch straight through the glass and kill him. Bucky’s safe in the future. If Steve kills Pierce now, he’ll mess up the timeline, and maybe Bucky will never be safe at all. Steve clenches his jaw, but that doesn’t stop him from trembling with rage. 

Peggy might not know about what’s happening to Bucky right now (right now, this very moment, in Siberia, his arm missing, his mind wiped, Jesus Christ), but the look she’s giving Pierce while she sifts through stacks of paper indicates she already doesn’t like him. “I’m not going to muzzle her. She’s got a very good grasp of her freedom of speech--”

“For God’s sake, Carter, this isn’t about the first amendment. She’s making you look like a Commie.” 

Peggy rolls her eyes. “If I were concerned about appearances, I wouldn’t be very good at my job, now would I?”

“Oh, come on. You’re a spy. Appearances are what you do. Anyway, how’s her brother feel about it, huh? Isn’t he over in Nam? Might change his sister’s tune if something happened to him.”

Steve’s stomach twists. So Peggy’s son hasn’t died yet, and what--Pierce’ll be the one to order him killed when it happens? Steve can’t change anything. It isn’t safe. He wants to punch Pierce’s face in. 

Peggy pulls herself up to her full height, jaw tightening. “I’m extraordinarily proud of both of my children,” she says, voice clear and cold. “And if you say another word insinuating someone might harm my children, I’ll make sure you spend the rest of your no doubt brief time with this organization mucking out toilets, Pierce. Do I make myself clear?”

Steve’s watch timer vibrates. He drinks in the sight of Peggy’s righteous anger before he types in the last set of coordinates and lets time yank him away from her. 

Steve opens his eyes in the cramped kitchen of a tiny yellow apartment. The window in the bedroom is open; Steve can smell the thick diesel and hear the cars honking in the street below. A sketchbook lies on the table beside an open suitcase, which is packed full of clothes. A letter’s half-finished on a notepad:  _ Bucky—I got in, don’t ask how but I’ll see you soon— _

03-23-1943. The day Steve reported for duty at Camp Lehigh. 

Steve wonders if “don’t change anything” extends to feeling the peeling wallpaper beneath his fingers. To turning on the sink to watch it bubble and spit. To sitting on the lumpy mattress and staring down at kids playing stickball in the street. He wonders where he is right now—the  _ him _ from ’43. He went to the store, he thinks, and got a pack of bubblegum to mail to Bucky. Maybe cigarettes too? He doesn’t remember even though he feels like he should. Though this both fourteen years ago and eighty years ago, and before the serum, so it’s no wonder his brain no longer contains the details of a routine trip to the corner store. 

Steve goes into the bedroom, to Bucky’s bedside table, and drags open the squeaky drawer. Sure enough, there’s one unopened pack of Lucky Strikes next to a worn Sinclair Lewis paperback. Steve gingerly lifts out the paperback and, careful not to break the spine any more than it already is, opens the cover. There’s his own handwriting, jerky and scrawled in faded ink across the yellowed inside cover:  _ Merry Xmas 1936. Love Stevie.  _

Steve swallows. He remembers how much he hesitated over that word, “love.” He’d sat at the kitchen table at Ma’s apartment—it was their last Christmas together, two weeks before Steve woke to the crash of her collapsing on the way to the bathroom. While he worried about how to sign Bucky’s book, he went into Ma’s room and turned on the radio so they could listen to carols. Ma passed him the scarf she was knitting him so he could see if it was long enough yet. It wasn’t quite; Steve pulled it comically tight around his throat and pretended to choke until Ma smacked his arm. He can feel how soft the yarn was against his hands when he passed it back to her.  _ You’re getting old before your time,  _ Ma warned, tapping her own forehead to signify the frown lines on Steve’s face.  _ What do you have to worry over?  _

_ Bucky’s present,  _ Steve said. He could say that to Ma. She knew more about how he felt about Bucky than anyone else did, maybe even Bucky, and that was without Steve telling her anything outright. 

She patted his hand. Were her fingers freezing by then? Or were they still warm like they were before her lungs started failing?  _ As if he’d be upset with you for anything like that,  _ Ma said. 

Steve sat with her until she drifted off and tucked her quilt around her. Snow drifted against the thin window. He went back to the kitchen and put on a pot for soup and somehow got up the courage to write “love” in Bucky’s book. 

He doesn’t remember how Bucky reacted. But it’s the only book in Bucky’s bedside table. Beneath it, Steve knows, are packs of rubbers. He wonders if Bucky remembers them. No, Steve knows Bucky remembers them. Love, Bucky had called it when they’d fought, spitting it in Steve’s face like a dirty word. Maybe he thinks Steve’s forgotten what they used to be to each other--as if anything could strip him of the memory of the soft-but-stubbly brush of Bucky’s mouth against his. They’ve just been too busy moving from crisis to crisis since Bucky came out of the ice. If Steve had been braver the other night, if he’d pressed his lips to Bucky’s temple the way he’d wanted to--maybe they wouldn’t have fought. He needs to go back and go through with that kiss. He has to hold Bucky in his arms and promise him  _ yours, yours, yours,  _ as if he’s ever really been anyone else’s. As if he’s ever imagined a life that didn’t include Bucky somehow. 

Steve pockets the cigarettes but leaves the book. He goes back to the kitchen and stands by the uneven card table, legs shaking. He only has one chance to get this right. 

_ What I did wrong,  _ Scott had said,  _ what you’re considering doing, is I focused on the what, not when. I focused on going backwards. Regressing.  _

_ Intention matters,  _ Hope had added, eyes keen in the firelight.  _ As unscientific as that sounds. What are your intentions? What do you want out of this? What is your goal?  _ He’d told her as best as he could, and she’d factored it into her equations, changing his words into numbers that made no sense to him but mattered more than any other numbers he’d ever seen. 

Bucky said,  _ Enjoy your dance,  _ and his eyes were so dark that it looked like he was the one who’d been punched. 

Footsteps, light and limping, come up the hall. A key jingles in the lock. Steve types in the coordinates, 1943x2023, and inserts the particles. He thinks about Lucky Strikes and second chances. About Bucky throwing him over his shoulder when he weighed 90 pounds soaking wet. About Bucky in his uniform, cocky at the Fair. He remembers the doll clutched in Morgan’s arms, Nate’s sleeping weight in his arms, Sam’s hand in his as they fell asleep. The pink sunrise gleaming off of Bucky’s metal arm.  _ Please, please, please,  _ Steve prays.

The door handle turns.

Steve hits the button.

He’s flying forward through electric blue, so dizzying that he might puke in his helmet. The space around him constricts until he can’t breathe. He’s compressing, yelling, pain like twenty needles pushing the serum into his skin sending fire into his nerves. 

He lands on the hard wood of a bench. It knocks the air out of him. Across the lake, a loon screams. Steve blinks his stinging eyes. No matter how much he squints, the lake doesn’t come into focus. It remains a blue of blue and gray with streaks of green trees above it. Even the grass by the bench seems blurry. His feet don’t quite reach the ground.

Steve lets out a shaking breath. 

“Where is he?” Sam’s yelling. “Bring him back.”

“I’m trying,” Bruce says frantically.

Then Bucky’s voice: “Sam. Look.”

Steve can hear them talking, but he doesn’t look back. Footsteps come cautiously up to him, crunching the leaves. Steve looks up expecting to see Bucky. Instead he finds Sam’s relieved face. Steve smiles. “Hey.”

“Did something go wrong?” Sam asks slowly. Steve shakes his head. “Did something go right?” Steve nods. Sam blows out a breath. “Wow.”

“Do I really look that bad?” Steve means it as a joke, but as soon as he says it, the tiniest bit of doubt creeps in. He’s not vain, but he’s spent twelve years being called everything from a beefcake to the owner of America’s Ass. This will be a change. “I don’t think my scoliosis came back, but—”

“No, no, you’re fine. Just give me a second.” Sam sits beside Steve, shaking his head. He looks Steve up and down, then whistles. “How much do you weigh, a hundred pounds?”

“Pretty sure it’s closer to 95.” Steve flaps the loose arms of his time travel suit. “I’ll need Tasha to take me shopping--” He freezes. 

Next to him, Sam takes a few deliberately careful breaths before he says, “I can help.” 

Steve nods. He can feel the weight of all the questions Sam isn’t asking. “D’you remember the first time I came to the V.A.?” Steve says. 

Sam smiles. “Hard to forget the time Captain America made me look cool at work.”

Steve wets his lips. This Captain America’s not going to be making anyone look cool at work anymore. “You still willing to help me get out?”

“Yeah,” Sam says immediately. Steve doesn’t miss the relief in his voice. “Yeah, whatever you need. You’re ready to get out?”

Steve looks down at his hands. They haven’t changed much; his wrists are skinnier, but his fingers are as long as ever. Artist’s fingers, Ma used to call them. “I think I’ve been ready for a while.” 

“Yeah.” 

Steve looks up at Sam. “You okay?”

Sam nods. “I think so. I’m just….” He hesitates, obviously weighing his words. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you’re getting out. If anyone deserves to retire, it’s you. I’m just kinda sad I have to live in a world without Captain America.”

Steve almost protests— _ I’m right here! _ —but that’s not what Sam means. He’s not Captain America anymore. That’s the point. “You might not have to,” he says. “Thor and Bruce are fixing my shield, right? You take it.”

Sam blinks. “You want me to take your shield?” He looks out at the lake, then over his shoulder, then back at Steve. Steve can see the excitement and apprehension fighting in his expression. “You sure about this? You want me to….”

“I wouldn’t be offering if I wasn’t.” Steve watches Sam’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallows. “You don’t have to do it. If you need out, get out. Don’t get weighed down like I did.”

Sam nods thoughtfully. “I think I know myself well enough to get out when I need to. But just to make sure: you want me to be…?” 

“Captain America.”

Sam startles. “Oh, that’s weird.”

“You don’t like it?”

“Oh, no, I do, I do. No take-backs.” Sam bumps shoulders with him. Steve bites back a smile. “Say it again,” Sam demands. 

Steve grins. “Hey, Cap, are you going to be lapping  _ me  _ now?”

“Damn right I am.” Sam laughs, a startled, happy sound. He turns around and yells, “Y’all hear that? Guess who’s Cap now?”

“Happy for you,” Bucky says. Steve frowns. Bucky sounds exhausted, voice thin and—and hurt. Steve stands quickly and hops the back of the bench to face Bucky. Bucky’s forehead is pinched, but it only stays like that for a second before his jaw drops. He stares at Steve so long that Steve’s ears burn. Then Bucky’s right in his space, still staring. Staring  _ down  _ at him. “What the hell, Rogers?”

Steve’s face turns red. He digs in his pocket and pulls out the Lucky Strikes. “Brought your smokes,” he says, holding them out to Bucky. Bucky shakes his head hard as if to clear it, then gapes at Steve again. Steve rubs the back of his head with one hand and shifts from foot to foot. All this staring makes his skin crawl. “What?” he finally snaps. “Something on my face?”

“I thought you were old,” Bucky rasps.

Steve blinks. “What?”

“I said, I thought you were  _ old _ .”

“Do I really look that bad?”

“No, dammit, Steve, what the hell?” Bucky’s jaw tightens. “I thought you were going back for your girl,” he says.

Steve swallows. “She’s not my girl, Buck. I love her, but she’s not my girl. She lived a good life without me. Had these kids she loved. I’m not stupid enough to mess that up.”

Bucky shakes his head. “But—then what the hell happened?”

This is the shameful part, the part that makes Steve feel like he’s failing Dr. Erskine and Peggy and his whole team, everyone who’s ever believed in him. As a kid in church, he was taught not to waste his talents, and here he is giving up the best part of himself. But. “At least—at least Tony got this for a while.” Steve gestures toward the lake, but he really means Pepper and Morgan. Really means  _ home _ . “I want this.” He doesn’t say ‘with you,’ but he reaches for Bucky’s hand. He laces their fingers together. 

Bucky looks down at their joined hands. “Stevie,” he says softly. That gentle sound throws Steve back to ’37, curling up in bed with Bucky and pretending it was something all friends did. 

“Say that again,” Steve says without meaning to. Bucky hesitates long enough that Steve shakes his head. “Sorry, you don’t have to, I just--”

Bucky’s grip on Steve’s hand tightens, not enough to hurt, just enough so Steve knows he’s not letting go anytime soon. “Stevie,” he says. 

Steve looks up at the trees, blinking fast. He has decades of practice suppressing tears. He’s just not used to them coming on so fast. “I don’t deserve you.”

“C’mon. Don’t.”

“It’s true.” Steve swallows. “I’m sorry. I put you through so damn much, and you still always treated me like--like I was yours. And I was, Buck. You gotta know that. I’ve always been--even when I was being a coward. I’ve always been yours.”

Bucky’s hand slips out of Steve’s grip, but Steve doesn’t have time to panic before Bucky’s tugging him into his arms. As short as Steve is now, his ear’s pressed to Bucky’s chest where he can hear his heart. 

“We can figure this out,” Bucky says, his voice vibrating against Steve’s cheek. “You and me. No more going backwards, all right? Only forward now?”

Steve nods. He grabs a fistful of Bucky’s shirt and holds on tight. “Only forward.” 


End file.
